Conversations with George Washington and Benjamin Rush

The book shows that the amazing Dr. Rush was crucial in both starting the revolutionary war and then winning it. Rush is largely unknown today because he did not gain high national office and because he attacked the sainted George Washington and was involved in the Conway Cabal to remove him as head of the revolutionary army. Both are quite upset that the nation they gave birth to is not recognizable to them. These two men clashed over politics, and drinking (of which Washington did a lot while Rush founded the temperance movement). Rush started both chemistry and many social movements. He founded three colleges, including Dickinson and Franklin and Marshall. He trained 3,000 doctors, was a holistic healer, was surgeon general in the revolutionary war, started vegetarianism and is considered a founder of battlefield medicine, dentistry, the humane treatment of the mentally ill, the Universalist Church, the abolition movement and psychiatry. The seal of that profession has his picture. Both Rush and Washington were social climbers, married ‘up,’ and rose to the top from lower status. Washington, a hard drug user, agreed with John Stuart Mill that the government should only protect citizens from harm from others but not harm to themselves.

The narrator, a runner and health nut, is appointed to the US Senate. He moves from a more friendly, blue-collar Baltimore to the fast-paced, less friendly national capital and experiences cultural shock. He shakes up the Senate by speaking truth to power regarding neglected children, the homeless and the inhabitants of Washington, DC, a colony of the federal government like Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Excerpts